Confront and Comfort
by Fellowshipper
Summary: Chris Halliwell tries to comfort his newest charge - Piper. Set during 5x22, Oh My Goddess! Part 2.


Too late to make a difference, Chris Halliwell began to realize that this hopeless plan seemed a lot easier when he could still convince himself that he was okay, that he could handle seeing his long-dead relatives again. Surprisingly, it had worked at first. Upon first orbing into the attic, Chris encountered Phoebe Halliwell and her sister Paige, though the latter was a frozen statue by that point. They were younger, much younger than Chris remembered, still just young women without the overbearing, maternal personalities he'd grown up with, so that helped. They weren't the same women he remembered from his childhood, weren't the ones who had taken him in and raised him after his mother's death before they, too, fell. They just looked like those women. He could deal with that.

What he hadn't anticipated was the sudden feeling that he'd been stabbed in the chest when Piper entered the room. Phoebe and Paige changed their looks so often it was hard to keep up, but Piper still looked exactly as he remembered. True, she was missing the stray flecks of silver in her hair and the very faint lines around her mouth and eyes hadn't settled yet, but she looked exactly the same. Chris's breath caught in his throat, and for several long, uncomfortable seconds, all he could do was stare at the woman he'd mourned for years and who, at that moment, regarded him as a particularly obnoxious insect.

But by then, his plan was already set in motion, and it, like time itself, would not wait to accommodate the psychic whiplash he felt there in the attic, torn between two worlds and feeling like he belonged in neither. The resulting flurry of activity provided a suitable distraction for the sisters to keep them from scrutinizing him too closely, just as it gave him a much-needed opportunity to regain his bearings. These women were not his relatives. Not yet. And the man who kept staring at him with clear distrust in his eyes, that wasn't yet his father, not that that look had been new to Chris. It was, in many ways, the only strategy Chris could hold onto to justify what he was doing: breaking his parents up, orchestrating his father's absence from the Charmed Ones' lives, all of it. He _had _to. And to be honest, it was hard not feeling at least a little bit of smug satisfaction that he was making a preemptive strike, forcing Leo out of Piper's – and his – life before Leo had the chance to break their hearts by leaving them on his own. It was childish and petty, selfish beyond measure, but Chris didn't care.

Well. That wasn't exactly true. While he didn't care what Leo thought or how he might react, somehow it had never occurred to him that he'd be left once again to pick up the pieces and help his mother – _Piper_, he reminded himself bitterly – move on with her life. He'd done it before, and he'd been much younger then, only a child who didn't understand why his father wasn't around unless it was for Wyatt's benefit. He was an adult now, so surely he could provide a clearer, more helpful response this time around, especially now that he knew exactly what was happening. He believed that until he walked by the kitchen and glanced over to catch Piper carrying Wyatt over her shoulder, pacing in a tight circle as she rubbed his back. The remains of his mushy mess of a snack were still in his highchair tray.

Without fully understanding why or even realizing he was doing it, Chris stopped and leaned against the doorframe to watch, instinctively tensing when Piper turned and noticed him. Her eyes narrowed darkly and she spun back around, long dark hair swinging gracefully behind her. Chris sighed and jammed his hands into his pockets.

"Look, I know you're—"

"Don't," she seethed, and the tone of her voice made Chris wince. He knew his mother – Piper, dammit, _Piper_ – had a temper, knew it well because he had inherited it, but she had never once used that particular tone on her children. Chris had heard it a few times when it was aimed at demons, and once, rather amusingly, at Wyatt's fourth-grade teacher, but he had never heard her direct her notorious fury on her sons. Reflexively, Chris's shoulders tilted inward and his eyes lowered to the floor, unwilling to watch Piper cradle Wyatt's head as though to protect him and reassure him that she wasn't angry with _him_, just wretched stranger who had shown up to utterly ruin their lives and tear their happy little family to pieces.

"Piper, please. Can we talk?"

"Unless you're planning on telling me exactly how you're going to get Leo out of this mess that _you _caused, I don't want to hear it."

"That _I _caused?" Chris howled indignantly, temporarily forgetting the shame of being chastised in favor of the same kind of righteous anger that, again, had mostly been Piper's genetic gift to him. "I'm not a Titan. And last time I checked, if I hadn't orbed in when I did? Paige would be dead, and you and Phoebe would be sitting ducks for the Titans to come pick you off." Piper wrinkled her nose in obvious disgust, especially since she knew she couldn't say anything to contradict that, and Chris rolled his eyes before going back to staring at the floor. "Besides," he added under his breath, "not like it's the first time Leo's bailed on you."

"Excuse me?"

There was that frosty tone again that made the hair stand up at the back of Chris's neck. He looked up, still surprised by the impact her voice had on him and the sudden acknowledgment that he had, in fact, just insulted her husband to her face, and he moved quickly to cover his tracks. "He's a Whitelighter, right? Always rushing off to go help his other charges? That's his job, Piper, that's what he _does_, just like it's _your _job to protect the innocent. Now he's just doing it on a much bigger scale. That's all."

"No, future boy, that is _not _all," Piper shot back, though she immediately lowered her voice when Wyatt squirmed in her arms and whined at the unfamiliar anger in her words. "There were other ways. There's _always _another way. They took him because They never liked the thought of us being together, and you helped Them. Now you're standing there making excuses for Them and telling me I should overlook the fact you just helped destroy my marriage, my _family_, and you don't think I have a right to be pissed?"

Chris's jaw clenched in a desperate attempt to keep his words completely to himself. Otherwise he was going to blow his cover right then and there, blurt out in excruciating detail just how _not _sorry he was to get Leo out of their lives. But there was also the fact that, mother or not, he didn't want to see her hurt. He'd seen it enough as a child when he was going through this the first time. Of course, crawling into her lap for a hug and promising "Mommy" that everything was okay simply wasn't an option this time.

"I get it, okay? You're mad. That's understandable. But you should be proud of him, you know." That time, at least, Chris fully expected the icy glare Piper shot at him; he'd had to do something to get her to just stop and look at him, after all. "He's saving the world, Piper."

"At the expense of his family?"

"No, _for _his family. Don't you get it? If Leo didn't do what he did, you and your sisters wouldn't even have a chance of vanquishing the Titans. The world as we know it wouldn't exist anymore. Is that really the kind of world you want to live in? That you want Wyatt to grow up in?" he added, slightly choked, as he nodded at the infant in Piper's arms. She looked down at her son, lips pursed in thought, but they both knew she didn't even have to answer those questions.

"I just don't understand why it had to be Leo," she half-whimpered as she dropped down into a chair at the kitchen table, staring blankly at the corner of the room without really seeing it. "Why now, after everything we've been through? After how hard we've fought to be together?"

Chris swallowed hard, using the silence to gather his thoughts before offering a small shrug. "I don't know. I really don't." Which was only one of what were sure to be many lies, he was sure, but if it helped his mother heal and get her ready to prepare for the coming battle with the Titans? So be it. "Just because I'm from the future and I might know the whens and wheres doesn't mean I know the whys or hows. I think part of it might be because Leo is still so in touch with his humanity. If the Elders wanted to, they could shut themselves off, protect themselves from the Titans, but that would mean shutting themselves off from the rest of the world, too. Leo wouldn't do that. He couldn't. That's the kind of leader the Elders need right now, someone who can help them fight and remind them why they're doing this in the first place."

If anyone had told him six months ago or even six weeks ago that he'd be singing his father's praises to his mother, of all people, he would have tried to vanquish them because clearly that person was a demon. As it was, it served the intended purpose of making Piper nod slightly, though her quiet sniffles were enough to make Chris turn his face away in shame. Again.

"I know," he started, voice cracking just enough to earn Piper's attention, "I know what it's like."

"Oh, I don't think you do," Piper answered with a heartbreaking little snort that felt just like the piercing sensation Chris experienced when he first arrived in the attic earlier in the day.

"From your side, no. But from Leo's side? Yeah, I kind of do." When he noticed Piper's express change subtly from disbelief to curiosity, he cleared his throat and continued. "I have a fiancée that I left behind. I didn't want to, but it was too dangerous to bring her with me, especially since we weren't even completely sure this whole time traveling thing would even work. Leo won't be gone forever. You know that. But I . . . I don't know when or even if I'll get to see her again," he explained, carefully omitting her name. He was already crossing some kind of boundary just by mentioning he even had a fiancée; he didn't need to complicate matters even further.

"We, uh, met under less than ideal circumstances," he admitted with a small, sheepish grin. "If I change the future to the way it should be, we probably won't even meet at all. I knew that going into this. I didn't like it and I still try to convince myself there's a way around it, but . . ." He trailed off, shaking his head slowly. "This is bigger than her, Piper. Bigger than me, you, Leo, all of us. And if it comes down to it, if I have to choose between her being without me but living in a good world, or being with me and dying in a bad one, there really _is _no choice, is there?"

Piper was quiet for a long while, and Chris irrationally worried that he'd pushed her right into one of her more violent rages; she did have goddess powers now, he reminded himself after the fact, and she was already pretty formidable in just her normal witch form. When she finally looked up at him, Chris impulsively took a half step backwards, ready to orb away at the first sign that she was going to assault him, but he relaxed when he saw the wry, achingly familiar ghost of a smile on her face.

"Is there some kind of Whitelighter training manual or something? I swear, you sound just like Leo."

Not exactly what Chris had ever wanted to hear, but he swallowed his immediate reaction of disgust and forced a tight grin, ducking his head to keep Piper from noticing the way the smile didn't come close to reaching his eyes.

"So. We cool now?"

Piper arched her eyebrows at him. "No." She got to her feet, preparing to take Wyatt upstairs to put him down for a nap, but she kept her eyes focused on her new Whitelighter. "But I'm less inclined to blow your future ass up."

"It's a start," Chris agreed with a much more genuine smile this time. As he turned to leave, he heard Piper call out his name, another one of those innocent but oh-so-painful reminders he was going to have to get used to if he wanted to stay around the Manor. He turned to find her staring quizzically at him, head tilted to the side.

"Last I heard, Whitelighters aren't allowed to get married."

Chris gave a casual shrug and another tiny grin. "What, you think you and Leo are the only ones who ever broke the rules?"

Piper smiled back at him in return, reminding Chris of the many, many times he'd been told by friends and family alike that he looked just like his mother. Before he could stop to analyze the gesture to death and berate himself for even thinking it, he put his hand lightly on Piper's shoulder as she passed ahead of him through the doorway, making her stop and look up at him.

"He'll come back, Piper."

She flashed a quick, sad smile and nodded. "I know."

Chris watched his mother ascend the stairs, her Grecian dress flowing elegantly behind her, and felt the pull of ties that had been severed years earlier as they knitted themselves back together. They stretched in every direction: after his mother and Wyatt, out toward the sun porch to find Phoebe, into the parlor toward Paige – and, to his irritation, toward a new Elder desperately trying to straddle two worlds just the same as Chris.

Annoyed by the connection, Chris disappeared in a mass of blue and white lights, bound Up There for another uneasy family reunion.


End file.
